First 24 members of the Utrecht Young Academy selected

Last week the first 24 members of the Utrecht Young Academy (UYA) have been selected. They are all excellent young academics, between 0 and 8 years after their PhD. The Utrecht Young Academy (UYA) has been set up to connect young UU academics from different disciplines and to provide them with a platform for freely interacting and exchanging ideas.

Young academics could be nominated for membership of the UYA by the deans of Utrecht University, programme directors of Utrecht University's strategic research themes and current KNAW Young Academy Members/Alumni of Utrecht University. They could nominate 2 male, 2 female, and 2 diversity candidates (either foreign academics employed at Utrecht University or Dutch academics with a migrant background). This resulted in a nice diversity in nominations, which is reflected in this first group of 24 members.

The Utrecht Young Academy allows members to get familiar with each other's fields of expertise, and enables them to discuss important meta-level topics like interdisciplinary and internationalisation in research and teaching, the organisation of science/science policy and connecting science and society. The members also get the chance to start projects together, that focus on these topics and/or on gaining public attention for Utrecht University's research and teaching.

Members are nominated for a period of 5 years. Every year, 8 new members will be selected, until the number of members stabilises at 40.